San Pedro Street road diet- if you look closely you can see the old pavement markings in the middle of the southbound travel lane and center turn lane

These are streets that underwent what many may identify as the “classic” road diet. The classic road diet re-configures a roadway into a single travel lane in each direction with a center turn lane and bike lanes, sometimes buffered bike lanes if there is enough room.

The LADOT managed to implement these road diets because recent traffic counts demonstrated these streets were operating below peak-hour capacity and, more importantly, could benefit from safety improvements typically observed when road diets are implemented.

The recently extended 1st Street bike lane were implemented through a re-configuration that is less common than the “classic” road diet, but are still road diets nonetheless

These are projects which still fall under the broad “road diet” umbrella term but don’t adhere to the configuration seen in the “classic” road diet.

“Asymmetrical road diets” are re-configurations in which streets resemble the classic road diet in one direction, but not in the other. An example of an asymmetrical road diet can be seen on a segment of Cypress Avenue in Cypress Park- the street was re-configured into one travel lane in one direction, two travel lanes in the other direction, a center turn lane and bike lanes in both directions.

“Other Re-configurations” refers to non-classic road diets, such as 1st Street in Downtown where the roadway was reconfigured from three travel lanes in each direction with a center turn lane into two travel lanes in each direction with a center turn lane and bike lanes.

While implementing 20 miles of road diets in a single year is a considerable achievement, the LADOT is not resting on its laurels. This 2013-2014 fiscal year an additional 0.3 miles of road diet with buffered bike lanes have already been installed on Compton Avenue with more road diet projects to come.

Additionally, even though road diets are acknowledged by the Federal Highway Administration as a proven means to improve traffic safety, the LADOT also looks forward to monitoring new road diet projects as data becomes available to observe specific safety improvements experienced on these streets.